DIGITAL SOLUTIONS
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Digital Contexts Recast Emotional Interaction with Brands
By Liz Crawford
How do digital contexts recast shoppers' perception of and emotional interaction with brands?
Grocery shoppers are becoming trained to hunt for their favorite brand coupons in the pre-shop phase. The coupons aren’t driving the list (as in the past); instead the list is driving the coupons.
The implication (and the evidence) is that these pre-shop downloaded coupons are rewarding current users at as high as 85% brand-user redemption rather than persuading switchers or recruiting new users.
That means that true pre-shop consideration - that is, considering buying a new brand or switching - is moving outside of the pre-shop coupon hunt to another media platform. We have evidence to show that at least some consideration is coming from social media.
Meanwhile, Google Glass and the Apple Watch have made a splash when they debuted. What is the future of these innovations?
Google Glass is a historical footnote. The company isn’t really supporting that brand at this point. However, the “glass” aspect allowed for augmented reality; that is, digital text and images overlaid onto the viewer’s real world. So I firmly believe that we will see this feature brought back to the marketplace in a different and more sophisticated form.
I was one of the first Google Glass “Explorers,” and it was a lot of fun. But it was clunky and awkward socially, like one of the first cellphones. Remember how big, heavy and awkward they were?
The Apple Watch will gain more traction than the first generation of Glass. But ultimately the Apple Watch will probably end up as a more useful wearable “platform” which connects to other wearable devices on a person. For example, we could be wearing an earbud, a watch and a contact lens, each of which would be connected; together would enable a wide-variety of digital interfaces for the user.
Why am I saying this? Because the watch itself only allows one hand to be used - not both hands. The watch doesn’t overlay on the users’ field of vision like Glass did, and it needs an earbud to speak “privately.” That’s a lot of restriction. The ideal is a completely hands-free experience, which offers visual and auditory interaction without undesired social signals.
As for the future of digital in grocery, I think that a just-in-time grocerant or cafeteria-style array of foods is where we are heading. The dynamics of food consumption and the ways industry is vying share of stomach is changing the dynamics of the “grocery” industry. The forces at work include:
- Shrinking household size due to lower birth rates and lower marriage rates
- Urbanization
- On-demand attitude toward purchasing goods and services.
This implies that the digital aspect of interacting with this future “store” or cafeteria/store will be opt-in, in the context of time and place and personalized to each buyer.
There will be stores that offer a highly personalized experience, and near-fanatical users. There will be less personalized and digitized stores which will have older shoppers and those who are less digitally-enabled and perhaps poorer. Finally, I believe it’s nearly inevitable that those who are not digitally-empowered will in fact be “disabled” in the future.
Liz Crawford is Senior Vice President of Strategy & Insights at Match ShopLab
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